US, others ready to adapt Ahtisaari plan -diplomats

OSLO, Apr 27 (Reuters) The United States and several other allies expressed readiness at NATO talks to adapt an international plan setting out independence for Kosovo, NATO diplomats said today.

''The US and others said they were ready to accommodate some concerns about the Serb minority without compromising the broad principles of the Ahtisaari proposals,'' said one diplomat after NATO talks in Oslo, referring to a UN plan vehemently opposed by Belgrade.

The diplomat said US officials at the talks did not expand on how existing arrangements within the UN plan for protecting the Serb minority in the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian province could be strengthened.

''There is no questioning of the Ahtisaari plan, but there could be some adjustments,'' a second diplomat said.

UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari warned this month against ''tinkering'' with his plan, which he says is delicately balanced between the aspirations of Albanians and the concerns of Serbs.

NATO foreign ministers had been due yesterday to discuss Kosovo with their Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Oslo after signs that Serb ally Moscow could seek to veto the Ahtisaari plan in the UN Security Council.

But the meeting with Lavrov was finally dominated by concern among allies over President Vladimir Putin's announcement that Russia was suspending its commitments under a European arms control pact, and Kosovo was barely raised.

REUTERS KK PM1550